Weekly Update

I'm so glad I made this goal of writing on my blog once a week! HA! I'm already failing at it. It's funny how little I feel like I actually do but yet I never have any spare time. I complained to Josh about a weekly obligation we have and Josh replied, "simplify your life." And I was like umm how much more simple can it get?! Some days I don't even leave the house! It's a strange phenomenon. Anyway, this week-

This week we took Cooper in to the doctor to get him a referral to start speech therapy again. We decided waiting until he's 3 is just too long and if we can get in early it would be nice. Plus Cooper seems to have made a developmental leap where he is being pretty receptive to learning things, he learned how to count to five on his fingers this week, so now would be a good time to go back to "Teacher Judy." And as further proof that I've forgotten how to speak to adults I told the doctor that the speech therapist we had seen before was "Teacher Judy" and then I was like wait, I guess that's not her actual name.

The appointment was... disappointing. I expected her to just write us the referral and say good luck. Instead she expressed concerns about Cooper being on the autism spectrum and wrote us a referral to see the speech therapist and also a developmental specialist in Seattle. Then she started telling me that Cooper would be able to go to regular classes in school and I was like why don't we see if there's anything going on first before you make Cooper's education plan.

So I'm frustrated and disappointed and want to punch the doctor in the face a little bit, and also want to cry when I see every other toddler in the world doing something like analyzing their genetic code under a microscope. I hate childhood development. I just do. But Cooper is my little buddy. So I'll swallow all the sour stuff and slap a smile on my face while I help him do whatever it is he needs.

My mommy gut, certified by Oprah, doesn't think there is anything else going on besides speech problems. Maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see. But then again I love to overreact and diagnose my children with everything imaginable so one would think I would have caught this already.

So that's Cooper's news. The longer he goes without talking, the dumber everyone is starting to think he is. Hahaha. I have this fantasy where I'm telling a teenaged Cooper stories about his childhood and I tell him you just wouldn't talk for so long, we were taking you to speech therapists and special doctors in Seattle! And then we laugh together about what a stubborn stinker he was. That's my hope.

Now for our neglected child- Ruby is still kicking it, baby style. I don't think she'll be ready to sleep train at 4 months. I guess I don't really know but she seems way too small to me to sleep all night without eating. She seems too little to think about starting solids in a month too. Did I really start feeding Cooper solids at 4 months old?! I thought he was so big at 4 months old. Anyway, Ruby is an angel, she seems to understand I have a toddler boy and she does a lot of sitting happily in her bouncy seat. I just love her.

I am trying to get outdoors more. Every summer after a pregnancy I get super antsy to get out and go because I feel like I sat inside for nine months. I've made a goal of two trail runs a week. I love getting out on the trails but spring in Aberdeen can be really rainy so I tend to lean towards going to the gym but I've made a goal to go rain or shine during those small, pre-planned times when Josh can take the kids. My grandpa inspired me to spend more time exercising outside rather than inside. I smile to myself when I think of the fittest person I ever knew, and the quiet, connected way he went about it. Papa never went to the gym, he never ran with an iPod or tracked his distance with the Nike running app, he never wore trendy spandex, and he never ran organized races. I remember when Papa was teaching me how to run sprint ladders to increase my endurance and I asked him for precise times for sprinting, jogging etc... But Papa never ran these sprint ladders on a treadmill, he ran them outside, and kept track of distance by counting each time his left foot hit the ground. He was the true outdoorsmen that Papa. So this weekend we're taking the kids hiking up at Lake Quinualt. It's supposed to be a sunny Saturday so depending on my children's disposition, it could be a really amazing day. It's hard to hike with young kids, did you know that? Probably because it's no fun to sit in a hiking backpack all day when you're two.

So that's about it for this week. Loving on my kids, worried that Cooper has special needs, and trying to enjoy more outdoor time.

Utah Trip

This week we went to Utah for my grandpa's funeral. We drove because last minute plane tickets for three people are super expensive. It's a 14 hour drive and on the way there we drove straight through because 14 hours in theory doesn't sound that bad.

It was rough. Ruby actually did really well on the way there. But Cooper was not pleased to sit in the car that long. I don't blame him, I wasn't pleased either and I'm not two. He took an hour nap, the first time he's fallen asleep in the car for probably a year and a half but never fell asleep at night so he ended up going to bed at 10 pm that night. By far his latest bedtime ever.

The whole drive I kept thinking of ways to get out of having to drive back home. Maybe I could fly back home with the kids and Josh could drive, or we could sell our car when we got there and all fly back home. Spoiler alert: we ended up driving home.

When we got there we had a couple days before the funeral so we tried to see some of our family and friends. We took Cooper bowling and to Jungle Jim's and I ate at Cafe Rio three times. Cooper loves the arcade at Jungle Jim's but he would start throwing the balls from the game into a different game or underneath a game or at your face. Eventually we had to cut him off of skeeball because those things are heavy.

We got to meet my only brother's only child, Jax. He's ten days younger than Ruby. And I want to smooch him all over. When Ruby and Jax were in the same room I'd ask Cooper where baby sister was, he'd look at both babies and then either hold up his hands to say I don't know or he'd point at Jax. So confused.

Then we had our "party for Papa" which is how I described the funeral to Cooper. His funeral was beautiful for a beautiful person. His notes to my grandma were displayed, it was amazing to see visually just how much time he spent enjoying nature. Really every opportunity he got. His bike and skiis and gps and tennis rackets and hiking shoes and straw hats and fannypack were all displayed and were all just totally worn out. He used them so much! And his crazy smart, unintelligible math notebook was out. He used to work math equations for fun that were several pages long. And his casket was natural pine topped with some sagebrush. It was perfect for my little mountain goat.

I've been having a really hard time with losing my grandpa. We were so close. He wasn't religious at all but towards the end he kept talking about heaven and how beautiful it was so that gives me hope. I hope so dearly that heaven is real and beautiful and that someone up there gives my Papa a bike and a tennis racket.

My beautiful children are healing my heart every time I look at them. They are so sweet and amazing and it's so nice to see them starting their own lives. Ruby is three months old now and she is just a joy. She is so happy. I love her smiles and baby laughs. The past (maybe 3?) weeks she has started to sit happily by herself. Well not sit, but lay or sit assisted with some sort of baby device. She still wakes up twice a night which wouldn't be so bad but I only have Cooper to compare her to and Cooper was an Olympic sleeper. Cooper was sleeping 10-12 hours at 3 months old! That kid loves his sleep.

Cooper is still so sweet with Ruby. He loves to hug and kiss her. And also he loves to take the binkie out of her mouth and hold it above his head out of reach and laugh his head off. Haha, I shouldn't find that funny but I do. He's getting so big. He's four months away from turning three and he is just barely starting the whole defiant-toddler thing. He was pretty sweet while he was two and not terrible at all. Now he has tantrums more often, usually about wearing clothes. He either wants to be naked or wear pajamas all day. Another thing I find inappropriately funny. He's also had two really big meltdowns, the hyperventilating, choking, long, loud kind of tantrums. They were both about trains he wanted to take home. Cooper. Loves. Trains. I can't believe it's taken him this long to do some of these toddler things. Three will obviously be harder than two. But I'm still enjoying his toddlerhood. His fits don't last that long and he's so much fun to play with!

Back to the trip- on the way home we decided to stay the night and split the drive up. It was the best idea ever. On the way there I didn't want to because Ruby still wakes up a couple times a night and I knew she'd wake Cooper up and I wasn't going to leave Cooper alone in his own hotel room. But then someone pointed out a wonderful thing- conjoining hotel rooms! So we got conjoining rooms and Cooper got his own room (and his own iPad for this trip, he's not spoiled or anything...) and it worked out beautifully, except for the minute that Cooper escaped out of the front door and ran down the hallway when I had my back turned.

This is a really weird picture but my heart was so full of happiness towards that blessed Comfort Inn that I had to take a picture.

It's so much easier to stay home with the kids and not go anywhere but as I was remembering my grandpa I remembered fondly all the vacations he took us on. Our simple vacations to Park City every summer were the highlight of my year. Maybe when my kids get a little older it will be easier to travel with them? I would really like them to have some of those fun memories like I did. Maybe once we don't have seven or eight poopy diapers a day to stop and change we will travel a bit more!